Wrightfully Simple

White Chicken Lasagna Soup

 

Ingredients:

1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, chopped (I used 4 chicken breasts, halved them, then cut into small chunks)
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided (I used about this amount to sauté my chicken in with the butter below)
3 tablespoons butter – see above comment...
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and sliced (I used baby carrots and chopped approx. 1 cup)
1 green bell pepper, chopped (I didn’t have a green bell pepper, but I used a red bell pepper)
4-6 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup flour
8 cups low sodium chicken broth…or more if you need to make it soupier
3 tablespoons cornstarch
15 oz can wegmans Tuscan cannellini beans, rinsed and drained or you can leave these out…your call.
1 tablespoon chicken bouillon or 3 to 4 cubes
1 tsp EACH dried parsley, dried basil
1/2 tsp EACH dried oregano, dried thyme, salt, pepper
2 bay leaves
Dash of cayenne
10 uncooked lasagna noodles broken into approx. 1-2 inch pieces* (see comment)
3 cups half and half (see comment)
1/2 cup heavy cream
10 oz chopped fresh spinach
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
When done top with a pinch or two of freshly grated Parmesan cheese



Directions:

1. Heat 3 tablespoon olive oil in a large Dutch oven/soup pot over medium high heat along with butter. Add chicken chunks with a sprinkling across of lowry’s seasoning salt, garlic pepper and Italian seasoning and cook until almost cooked through. Remove to a bowl. You should still have a little olive oil on the bottom.
2. Add just a tbsp. of butter in the empty pot and heat over medium high heat. Add onions and carrots and cook, while stirring, for 3 minutes. Add bell pepper and garlic and cook for 1 minute. Sprinkle in flour then cook, stirring constantly for 3 minutes (it will be thick).
3. Turn heat to low and gradually stir in 8 cups chicken broth, whisk it to help with clumps. Whisk 3 tablespoons cornstarch with 1 cup of chicken broth and add to soup. Stir in chicken, beans, chicken bouillon and all remaining herbs and spices. Stir in lasagna noodles or noodles of choice.
4. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer until noodles are tender, stirring occasionally so noodles don’t stick to bottom (approximately 20-30 minutes).
5. Turn heat to low, discard bay leaves and stir in half and half, heavy cream and spinach and warm through. Stir in 1 cup Parmesan cheese until melted. Season with additional salt and pepper to taste. Garnish individual servings with desired amount of cheese.

 

Comment:
This soup called for lasagna noodles and that’s what I used, but found that if you don’t break these up extra small it’s really hard to eat without cutting them after the soup is done. So, you can use whatever pasta you want…I think a bowtie pasta would be great in this. I will do this next time. If you don’t happen to have half-half you can use 1 1/2 cups heavy cream and 1 1/2 cups milk.